


call me ugly so i can say you never mattered

by kwritten



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Vicki lives! Matt dies!, that's all you need to know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 15:17:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11534907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kwritten/pseuds/kwritten
Summary: prompt: Matt died instead of Vicki





	call me ugly so i can say you never mattered

"We aren't friends," she hisses under her breath when her phone chimes for the third time that night.   
  
She's glowering at this point and  _glowering_  does nothing for her face, especially not the face she's  ~~attempting~~  wearing tonight, that one that's slightly dangerous but also fragile. It's the face that got Jeremy Gilbert to fall in love with her - all soft brown eyes and callused brown hands and crooked smile of him. Tonight she wants to be loved like that, as if there's a truth to any of her masks...   
  
As if there's any truth to her at all.  
  
"Shouldn't you answer that?" the boy eating out of her hands is too young to be dangerous and too old to be charming for the sake of this lack, but he'll taste good, he'll fill her up even if he won't...   
  
"Nah," she tosses her hair with a chuckle and wraps her hands around her neck. "It's not important."  
  
"Except all the parts that are," Caroline's brittle voice suddenly in her ear, Stefan close behind with his apologetic eyes.  
  
_I'm sorry for your brother._  
I'm sorry this is your life.   
I'm sorry for your life before.  
I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.  
  
~~he's not sorry for the right things... none of them are~~  
  
Vicki bares her teeth down at the boy, her skin filling with blood that rushes to her eyes, to her fingers, to her cunt, to her toes and knees, "Maybe next time sugar."  
  
_I'm sorry for the itch under your skin._  
I'm sorry for how hungry you always are.  
I'm sorry there's no cure for who you are and who you aren't.  
I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.  
  
"SOS means emergency, Vick," Caroline lectures when they arrive - windblown and immortal - at the Gilbert house. "I didn't call you for my health."  
  
Stefan rolls his eyes, and as usual Vicki isn't sure if he's annoyed with her or with Caroline or with Elena or with his brother or with Mystic Falls or with himself or ... with the entire damn world for being so difficult. She'd place bets on the latter.   
  
Elena stands precariously on the threshold, her wiry body practically vibrating with anxiety, her eyes searching the three of them for wounds or new scars or any sign of distress. What she sees isn't enough.  
  
It never is.  
  
War makes humans nervous and there's no relief for it, not really.  
  
Vicki avoids Elena's eyes as she pushes past her into the house and up the stairs to ... her room.   
  
_"Maybe... maybe you should stay here?" Elena's hands in her hair and Matt in the ground and vomit on her tongue and tears tears tears that come from nowhere and everywhere._  
  
She nodded, sunk into hands that held her, and relented her life.   
She's been mourning it ever since.   
The freedom she used to feel in only one person worrying about her.   
  
She signed up for a room, not a weird aunt and weird vampire uncles and three sisters that pin their hearts on her face and her hands and her presence and two brothers in the living room feigning at normalcy when there's none of that left.  
  
Vicki sinks into the bed and listens to the battle prep downstairs with new ears, not sure whether she wants to ignore it or run into it or run far away from everyone. Bonnie will bring her blood in a bag in a little while, Jenna will smooth her hair away from her sweaty forehead, Jeremy will knock three times on the wall between them to let her know he's home, they'll all continue to whisper downstairs about this threat or that.   
  
_I'm sorry I'm not HIM._  
I'm sorry this hunger has nothing to do with the new teeth you gave me.  
I'm sorry I'm no warrior and no damsel.  
I'm sorry there's no cure for who I always was.  
I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.


End file.
